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By David LeonhardtThe New York Times • Sunday March 17, 2013 11:16 AM

Most low-income students who have top test scores and grades do not even apply to the nation’s
best colleges, according to a new analysis of every high-school student who took the SAT in a
recent year.

The pattern contributes to widening economic inequality and low levels of mobility in this
country, economists say, because college graduates earn so much more on average than nongraduates.
Low-income students who excel in high school often do not graduate from the less-selective colleges
they attend.

Only 34 percent of high-achieving high-school seniors in the bottom fourth of income
distribution attended any one of the country’s 238 most-selective colleges, according to the
analysis, conducted by Caroline M. Hoxby of Stanford and Christopher Avery of Harvard. Among top
students in the highest income quartile, that figure was 78 percent.

The findings underscore that elite public and private colleges, despite a stated desire to
recruit an economically diverse group, have largely failed to do so.

Many top low-income students instead attend community colleges or four-year colleges closer to
their homes, the study found. The students often are unaware of the amount of financial aid
available or simply do not consider a top college because they have never met someone who attended
one, according to the study’s authors, other experts and high-school guidance counselors.

“A lot of low-income and middle-income students have the inclination to stay local, at known
colleges, which is understandable when you think about it,” said George Moran, a guidance counselor
at Central Magnet High School in Bridgeport, Conn. “They didn’t have any other examples, any
models. Who’s ever heard of Bowdoin College?”

Whatever the reasons, the choice has major consequences. The colleges that most low-income
students attend have fewer resources and lower graduation rates than selective colleges do, and
many students who attend a local college do not graduate. Those who do can miss out on the career
opportunities that top colleges offer.

The new study is beginning to receive attention among scholars and college officials because it
is more comprehensive than other research on college choices. The study suggests that the problems,
and the opportunities, for low-income students are larger than previously thought.

“It’s pretty close to unimpeachable — they’re drawing on a national sample,” said Tom Parker,
the dean of admissions at Amherst College in Massachusetts, which aggressively has recruited poor
and middle-class students in recent years. That so many high-achieving, lower-income students exist
“is a very important realization,” Parker said. He suggested that colleges should become more
creative in persuading them to apply.

Top low-income students in the nation’s 15 largest metropolitan areas do often apply to
selective colleges, according to the study, which was based on test scores, self-reported data and
census and other data for the high-school Class of 2008. But students from smaller metropolitan
areas — such as Toledo; Memphis, Tenn.; Sacramento, Calif.; and Tulsa, Okla. — and rural areas
typically don’t.

These students, said Hoxby, one of the researchers, “lack exposure to people who say there is a
difference among colleges.”

Elite colleges may soon face more pressure to recruit poor and middle-class students, if the
Supreme Court restricts race-based affirmative action. A ruling in the case, involving the
University of Texas, is expected sometime between this week and late June.

Colleges currently give little or no advantage in the admissions process to low-income students,
compared with more-affluent students of the same race, other research has found. A broad ruling
against the University of Texas affirmative-action program could cause colleges to take into
account various socioeconomic measures, including income, neighborhood and family composition. Such
a step would require an increase in these colleges’ financial aid and would help enroll significant
numbers of minority students.

Referring to the court case, Greg W. Roberts, dean of admissions at the University of Virginia,
said: “If there are changes to how we define diversity, then I expect schools will really work hard
at identifying low-income students.” Winona Leon, a sophomore at the University of Southern
California who grew up in western Texas, said she was not surprised by the study’s results. Leon
was the valedictorian of her 17-member senior class in the ranch town of Fort Davis, where Advanced
Placement classes and SAT preparation were rare.

“It was really on ourselves to create those resources,” she said.

She first assumed that faraway colleges would be too expensive, given their high list prices and
the cost of plane tickets home. But after receiving a mailing from QuestBridge, an outreach program
for low-income students, she came to realize that a top college might offer her enough financial
aid to make it less expensive than a Texas state school.

The study will be published in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity.